


Death Omen, Shmeath Omen

by HowAboutThatSnapback



Category: Gravity Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:58:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowAboutThatSnapback/pseuds/HowAboutThatSnapback
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of Stan and his death omen dog. Based on @notllorstel's Grim AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Omen, Shmeath Omen

Winter has always been a terrible season for Stan. Even as a child, he often didn’t like winter all too much. In fact his mother told him that as a baby he absolutely hated to cold and almost died once. That dislike became downright _hatred_  after he was kicked out. That hatred hasn’t lessened at all considering when he made the biggest mistake in his life and pushed his brother into the portal.

This winter is no better than any other winter except he’s in a nice warm house… or he would be if he weren’t down in the basement.

He’s wearing a sweater- one of Ford’s and thankfully it was made too big for his brother- sweatpants and his winter boots. He keeps breathing onto his hands- especially his fingertips- in attempt to warm them up. The only reason he isn’t wearing his gloves is because he needs to use his hands to turn the pages of the journals and work on the portal.

 _Two years working on this goddamned portal,_  he thinks and coughs into his hand. He should probably dust down here, but that would be too troublesome.

He decides to finally take a break- just go upstairs for a smoke and take a nap then wake up for his first tour. The snow wasn’t bad enough to hinder tourists- he learned early on.

Once he’s up in the house, he goes to the kitchen and grabs a cigar and goes outside to smoke as he usually does. He has it in his head that he’ll get Ford back anyway now and he doesn’t want to hear any lip about him smoking inside the house while he was gone. Though he might break that habit soon.

He lights up and after the second inhale, his body stiffens as he coughs into his fist violently. He breathes raggedly for several seconds and lets the cool air soothe his lungs even if it’s minutely.

 _Shit…_  Stan thinks as he puts out his cigar.

Suddenly he notices a black dog standing at the edge of the forest, staring at him.

He’s seen this dog several times over the past week and figures he must be pretty hungry so he heads inside.

_Alright, what would a dog like? Meat, of course… Eh, this bacon looks like a good idea- gonna go bad before I get the chance to eat it anyway… and… leftover chicken works too… mm, chocolate… tuck that away for later._

After filling a plate with food, he goes out. The dog growls quietly as he nears so he stops and crouches a bit while showing his hands.

“Heya, fella… you must be pretty hungry t’ scavenge ‘round here… believe me, I know the feeling,” he says with a light smile as he places the plate on the ground.

Many nights he’s had to go into restaurant dumpsters for food before they found him and chased him away. Those are thoughts he tries not to dwell on… he tries not to dwell on a lot of things, come to think of it.

The dog sniffs the food before wagging his tail happily and showing down.

“Glad ya li-” He coughs into his fist so hard his chest hurts and tears come to his eyes. “-ike it…”

The dog whines and licks Stan’s cheek.

“Hey, hey, none’ah that,” Stan grunts while backing away from the dog’s reach as best he can from his kneeling position. The dog’s breath smells like death. “Ugh, you need t’ do something about that breath.”

Once the dog calms down, he stands up with the empty plate in his hand and walks toward the house coughing the entire way.

About ten feet from the porch he collapses.

Several hours later he wakes up and finds himself on the porch laying on the cough with his entire body sore and his body… surprisingly warm. It’s only when he opens his eyes does he realize why.

The dog is lying on top of him with Stanley’s hands under his jaw.

“Hey,” he grunts when the dog’s strange orange eyes open and stare at him. “You the one that brought me up here?”

The dog had with a surprising feat of strength. He dragged Stan’s body by the shirt up the stairs and onto the couch before setting himself on him to keep him warm.

“I guess I gotta thank ya,” he says while petting the dog and scratching him behind the ear.

He doesn’t mind when the dog licks his face this time and sits up with a groan. _Alright… should probably go inside now…_

He stops at the door and sees the dog waiting there. “Y’comin’ in?”

The dog barks and turns, running out into the forest.

“Guess not,” he says and closes the door.

Suddenly it occurs to him that his cough’s gone- he hasn’t had to stifle the urge since his consciousness.

_Weird…_

* * *

Stan hadn’t expected the dog to come back- not anytime soon at least. If he did, Stan was sure he’d hear scratching on the door…

That’s not how it happened.

He was locking up the Shack when the dog suddenly _walked through_  the door.

He jumps back in surprise and trips on the godforsaken rug onto his back while crying out, “ _The hell?!_ ”

The dog barks and licks his face with his tail wagging.

“This town just gets weirder and weirder,” Stan decides and rubs his forehead. “I bet you’re hungry, aren’tcha boy?”

A sharp bark.

“ _Girl_ , girl,” he corrects himself. “C’mon, let’s see what we can get.”

He pushes himself up and grabs his keys in the process. He leads the dog and is only mildly perturbed by the dog not leaving his side and phasing through walls. He grabs some dog food he got just in case it- _she_ \- came back and puts it in a bowl.

As i- she eats he settles into his chair and watches her. A strange dog for sure, but… it’s nice having a bit of company here for once.

“What’m I gonna call ya?” Stan asks her.

She wags her tail and smiles up at him and he can’t help but smile back. She was adorable.

“Uh… Shirley?”

No response.

“No… Lady?”

A huff of displeasure.

“Okay, I was bein’ lazy that time… hooow about? Eveline? Ugh, no… _that_  girl shouldn’t ever be mentioned again… Echo? Minnie?… Sheba?”

She perks up and wags her tail.

“Sheba it is,” he says with a smile.

* * *

He got used to Sheba. She’d come and go as she pleased- he couldn’t exactly lock her in a room. There were plenty of times times he’d wake up to her laying on his chest or his legs or curled up into his back or in his side. He didn’t mind having the dog at all and didn’t really question it when she didn’t age over the years. He just figured it was another weird quirk of this weird town.

He did find it odd when some people couldn’t _see_  her sometimes when she was walking with him on one of those days she refuses to leave his side. One day he’d walk into a store with her at his side and someone would demand he send Sheba out and the next the same person wouldn’t notice her. Some people could see her all the time and other would never notice no matter how someone tries to convince them. Despite that, whether they see Sheba or not, they get a chill of their spine when she’s near.

Overtime he got used to it and so did the townsfolk.

Several years later when the twins came down, he found they couldn’t see Sheba for a good two weeks before suddenly they could _see her_  and realize their Grunkle Stan wasn’t crazy. For the first two weeks after that they’d occasionally see her and would see her more frequently as the week went on until they could see her for what he would like to think permanently.

And then Ford came back.

He couldn’t see what his family was interacting with. He’d see his niece floating on, Dipper leaning against, and Stanley interacting with something unseen. He literally watched food disappear from thin air as bites were taken out of it. He couldn’t understand it. Ghosts can’t do this and he can’t recall ever seeing something like this in this dimension.

The day he saw it, he was… surprised to say the least.

* * *

“Grunkle Ford, look out!” Dipper shouts.

He looks up in confusion. “What- _holy-_ ”

The large black dog’s lunging right at him when he finally sees her and he ends up on his back with it on his chest, licking his face.

“Oh, she likes you,” Mabel says with a delighted smile.

“Get off,” Ford grunts, pushing the dog off of him.

“Come here, Shiba,” Mabel says.

“Shiba?” Ford asks. _This_  is the thing they’ve been interacting with.

“She’s Grunkle Stan’s dog,” Mabel says.

“Apparently she’s been Grunkle Stan’s for a long time… almost thirty years,” Dipper adds. “I believe she’s a death omen.”

“ _A death omen?!_ ” Ford shouts. _Everyone in this house should be_ dead _by now!_

Shiba barks and runs through a wall toward gift shop and suddenly there’s a loud thump of someone falling onto the ground.

Ford goes through the door and looks down at his brother as Shiba licks his brother face.

“Down, girl. I’m gettin’ too old for that,” Stan says with a chuckle.

“How did you get a death omen as a pet?”

“I fed her,” Stan shrugs.

“You made an offering to a death omen and it became your pet?”

Stan shrugs. “I guess so.”

Ford takes several moments to process before he shrugs it off and walks away with an, “Alright.”

“Huh… took that better than I expected,” Stan states.

“Uh-huh,” the younger set of Pines twins nod in agreement.


End file.
